Growth and optical properties of GaN/AlN quantum wells

We demonstrate the growth of GaN/AlN quantum-well structures by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy by taking advantage of the surfactant effect of Ga. The GaN/AlN quantum wells show photoluminescence emission with photon energies in the range between 4.2 and 2.3 eV for well widths between 0.7 and 2.6 nm, respectively. An internal electric field strength of 9.2±1.0 MV/cm is deduced from the dependence of the emission energy on the well width.